Stay
by hellorojo
Summary: I hate you." "Liar." Mugen wakes up beaten and sliced up to find Fuu taking care of him. MugenxFuu.


Repost from my old account.

**"STAY**"

He bolts awake, the pain from the wounds searing throughout his entire body, screaming through his wave of unconsciousness.

"Shit!" he screams, sitting bolt upright, his chest rising and falling heavily. The instant he sit up the pain washes over him again and he collapses back onto the blankets, his eyes squeezed shut in pain and his eyebrows narrowed sharply.

_Shit, shit, shit...Why aren't I dead?_

"You can stop cutting off my circulation now," says a cheery voice and he reluctantly opens one eye. She sits there, unsmiling beside him, but relief seems to have washed over her.

He hisses out pained breaths, his ribs pushing against his lungs as they heave. "You..." he gasps, trying desperately to regain his composure. "What the hell happened?"

She blinks at him. "You and Jin saved me from those bandits," she replies quietly. "And you still are cutting off my circulation."

He glances down and sees that he has her wrist in a death grip. Quickly he lets go, as though her touch burns him, jerking his rough hand back to his side. In truth, it _does_ bother him: that he would hold onto her as though she were his only support.

Now, as he thought back, he did remember those damn bandits. Ugly bunch of guys, but they were well-equipped guys, none the less. They hadn't been anything special and they'd wanted the same shit every other bad guy wanted: money and the chick. He grit his teeth and closed his brown eyes again, trying to even out his breaths. He really didn't like looking so weak in front of this stupid girl. It sincerely bothered him in the back of his head, and so he finally managed to suppress the pain shooting through him and open his eyes again, staring straight into hers like none of it bothered him at all, like it was all easy.

"How's Mr. Silence doin', huh?" he asks, though he's not really concerned.

She frowns and points past his head. He glances in that direction and sees Jin's unmoving body a few feet away, bandages wrapped around his chest, his chest falling and rising rapidly. The samurai's brow in furled to its fullest extent, probably fighting off a few stabs of pain in his troubled mind.

He glances back at her. "So he's not dead?" he asks and she shakes her head.

"No," she answers. "He'll be fine. He just lost a lot of blood. You both did."

He grins a little, though the look is pained. "Good," he grunts out. "I still have to kill that son of a bitch."

"Don't talk about Jin like that," she says softly.

He glares. "Why not?" he asks disruptively. He props himself up on his elbows so that he is closer to her kneeling form. Only now does he realize that there are deep bags under her eyes and her hands are shaking slightly in her lap. She's a little paler than usual, too, almost sallow looking.

Was she..._worried_?

She sighs and looks at her shaking hands in her lap, trying desperately to steady them. "We've been traveling together forever now..." she says dreamily, her voice sounding distant and far-off. "You still think of Jin as just another kill?"

"What else would he be?"

"I dunno - maybe a friend."

He snorts disapprovingly. "Sorry, don't do the whole friend thing," he scoffs.

She lowers her eyes a little more and sighs. "I suppose you don't, huh?"

"Yeah. That's right."

"Alright."

"Alright."

There is silence and he looks down at his own chest. He's also bandaged around the torso, rather poorly too. She must have done it herself, he thinks, but doesn't want to make a remark about the poor doctoring she did.

"So," he says nonchalantly, "where the hell are we, huh?"

She does smile a little bit now, looking up again. "In some shack," she says with the faintest trace of a laugh. "You two are heavy, you know?"

He jerks his stare back to her and blinks. "You carried us?" he asks in disbelief.

She shakes her head. "Dragged you, more like it," she says.

"How far?"

She shrugs. "Dunno. Couple miles, I suppose."

He grins at her. "Well, congrats, girlie. Well done."

She doesn't reply. He chuckles at her sudden lack of social skills. He decides that now is a great time to start messing with her.

"So...were you worried?" he asks with that evil grin.

She shoots him a look. "Not about your life," she snaps, seeing that he only wants to taunt her.

"Liar," he says.

"No, really," she says, suddenly calm and collected. "The only thing I was worried about was losing business. That's all you are, Mugen."

He grins even broader, but then that awful pain racks his system again and he thrashes violently. Unable to stop himself, he lets out a scream of agony, loud and strangled and desperate. Her face contorts into one of pure fear and she dashes off. He watched her go, his eyes watering as his body arches off of the floor.

"Don't...you leave...me..." he gasps out, thrashing again. For an instant, a wave of fear flashes before his eyes. She's leaving him, running away in fear..._damned woman_...

But no sooner does he think this than she comes back, a bottle in her hands. She sits on his stomach to keep him from moving and he screams again.

"_Damnit, Fuu_!" he screams as her weight presses against a deep gash in his stomach.

"Shut up," she roars back and uncorks the bottle with her teeth. Frantically, she opens his mouth and pours the contents of the bottle into his mouth. It burns as it slides down his throat and he thrashes once more, but she keeps him down with her slight weight.

Slowly, the pain dissipates and he finds himself becoming more and more tired with each passing second. "What was that shit?" he asks woozily.

Fuu takes a deep breath and looks into his eyes. "Medicine," she says quietly and he winces.

"Yeah, I guessed that much," he snorts. "Get offa me, will yah?"

She frowns a little and complies, getting up to leave, but his hand grabs her wrist. She stops and stares back at him in confusion. "What?" she says.

He pulls her back down next to him and blinks, all expression gone from his harsh face. "Stay with me, alright?" he says, not asking really, more like telling her what she was going to do.

She blinks. "Are you drunk or something?" she says in disbelief.

"Not unless that shit you shoved down my throat was sake," he grunts, pulling her closer so that he can wrap an arm around her thin waist. Her breath catches in her throat and she tries to pull away.

"Mugen..."

"I'm not gonna take advantage of you or whatever, Fuu," he assures, lifting his head up and placing it into her lap. "I just don't like the whole idea of being stuck next to Mr. Silence all by myself."

She hesitates, but then relaxes as he slowly starts to trace designs onto the fabric covering her legs. She isn't conscious of it, but her fingers find his messy hair and she starts to intertwine her fingers in it, despite how coarse it feels.

"I was worried," she says and he closes his eyes, inhaling her warm scent.

"About what?" he asks.

"You," she admits. "I thought you two were going to die. I'd be all by myself if that happened, you know? Who knows what trouble I'd get into."

He smiles a little. "I knew you were worried," he says smugly and she yanks on a bit of his hair playfully.

"I hate you," she says with a giggle.

"Liar."

She stops at that and takes a very deep breath. "How come you hate me so much?" she asks quietly.

He stops too and rolls over so that he's looking up at her, his head still in her lap. He seriously considers his response for some time. "I dunno," he says softly. "Maybe I hate you 'cause...I..."

He knows exactly why he hates her so much. It is because if he didn't, he'd get attached to her. And he'd never be able to leave her side. He's probably end up getting her hopes up, and she'd fall in love with him or something, and he wouldn't be able to love her back, and she'd get her heart broken, and he didn't want that to happen to her, and...

He sighs and turns around again, snuggling deep into her. "You smell nice," he says quietly and forces himself to sleep.

She stares at him for a while and then sighs. "You prick," she says softly, tears stinging at her dark eyes. The only man she's ever really loved is a prick.

Perfect.


End file.
